The Ghost Frequency

[LewisM]

Would be interested to see people's reactions to how they feel after listening to 18.98 Hz sound (this was on The Project last night, but I have been aware of it for a while).

This is supposedly the Ghost Frequency - it is an intrasonic frequency just below MOST people's hearing range (I CAN hear it), that causes resonance in the eye and the frontal lobe of the brain. It is this phenomena that seems to help explain a lot of the "Ghost" sightings and the like, and is associated with a lot of natural phenomena like earthquakes/tsunamis and other tectonic occurences. IT is a frequency that seems to alert and alarm most animals too, causing them to flee the oppsoite direction to the sound source.

Here is a sample: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-zM3qAzBaw

I listened to it over several weeks randomly, and even had the wife play it randomly so that I was not pre-tuned to it.

My personal reaction was immediate ear pressure, my eyes if closed tended to turn toward my nose (if open, the brain stops this), and if played for more than a minute, I start getting frontal lobe pain on both sides. I did never feel emotional or doom and gloom, but it definitely engendered some feeling of slight confusion as to WHAT was going on. As I mentioned, I CAN hear it (however faint it is, but definitely can), and a small percentage of others can too.

Test it yourself, let us know your response. Just ignore all the voodoo associated with it.

[blink138 (Pat)]

that could make a very interesting paper for someone actually
pat

[multiweb (Marc)]

Gotta be deaf not to hear it.

[LewisM]

Originally Posted by blink138

that could make a very interesting paper for someone actually
pat

Been done already - extensive research, including NASA (who discovered the ye resonance)

[LewisM]

Originally Posted by multiweb

Gotta be deaf not to hear it.

Pardon?

[Pinwheel (Doug)]

Isn't this also known as the Brown note, it causes some people to soil themselves. Mythbusters did a show about it.

[graham.hobart (Graham stevens)]

I start getting frontal lobe pain on both sides

Sorry Lewis but you must be super sensitive- as the brain has no pain receptors. Only the scalp/periosteum and the meninges can sense pain, so you can actually do brain surgery without anaesthetic once these are opened- the Meso-American cultures discovered this fact when they made a paste out of chewed up cocoa leaves and pasted it into deep skull wounds before decompressing skull fractures etc.
The brain can interprete pain from other sources though, eg. your sensorium- sensing air pressure changes and vibration in low frequencies via skin/ ears/ pressure changes in the bowel/ sinuses, other air spaces etc., a fact the U.S Military used to use ? in Guantanamo to great effect (allegedly).
Not usually a pedant but it was my area of research as a young laddie!
Now back to that Patrick Swayze film..!
G

[LewisM]

Maybe I have alien probe implants in my brain and it vibrates them....

Better still, perhaps in some people the frequency "activates" the nociceptors in the pia and dura that DO feel pain. Or the resonance is affecting the optic nerve (cranial nerve II). I note the pain/pressure in the frontal area above the eyes seems to last considerably longer than the other effects.

[AstralTraveller (David)]

There might be 18.98Hz in there but, played through my desktop computer speakers, the dominant tone is at 285Hz.

[Shiraz (Ray)]

Originally Posted by AstralTraveller

There might be 18.98Hz in there but, played through my desktop computer speakers, the dominant tone is at 285Hz.

yes, you might need an extreme soundcard, a flat high power servo amplifier and a 16 inch sub woofer before you can hear much fundamental .

[AstralTraveller (David)]

Originally Posted by Shiraz

yes, you might need an extreme soundcard, a flat high power servo amplifier and a 16 inch sub woofer before you can hear much fundamental .

I know the owner of the biggest PA hire company in Wollongong. Perhaps I can run a campus-wide 'blind' test.

[clive milne]

Well... there are more than one or two misconceptions about sound perception, even in so called professional audio and hi-fi circles. One of them being the lower limit of human hearing (often stated as 20Hz)
The truth is that it is possible to hear down to 3Hz, if it is loud enough and the tone is free of harmonics. Tom Danley was a pioneer of sorts (and arguably still is) he has made some amazing stuff in his time, not least of which is a device that could simulate the low frequency sound of nuclear blast waves (for knocking down houses and things like that)
He states that he personally stood in front of his 3Hz house buster, and it needed to be up around 160db to hear it, but hear it you could none the less. Incidentally, 165db is at the point where the low pressure cycle is a perfect vacuum and it is no longer possible to stand up or retain the clothes on your body. He reports that 3Hz at those sorts of intensities is unpleasant, but tolerable for short bursts.

One of the other furphys that has passed in to the public mind as solid as the Earth was flat once upon a time, is that PA systems or consumer Hi-Fi have any meaningful response down below 45Hz that is audible above the second and third order harmonics. The harmonics might only be a percent or two in magnitude but dominate due to our insensitivity to the fundamental.
Tapped horns are probably the only type of speaker that can reproduce 20Hz accurately at any decent volume without adding bucket loads of harmonics which are invariably mistaken for the fundamental tone, irrespective of what the tech might be showing you with the db meter.

This is one subwoofer that actually can do 20Hz at a meaningful level.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zbf3bzpgml8

[clive milne]

Needless to say that the design of a speaker system capable of reproducing 20HZ is not difficult at all.

However, a speaker design which reproduces 20Hz with the second and third order harmonics below a level where you can actually hear the 20Hz tone at any meaningful level, well that is a rare thing indeed.

[Shiraz (Ray)]

learn something new every day - didn't know our hearing extended down that far.

Lewis, what did you use to produce the sound and were you able to hear anything when it was on, or did you just feel the other effects?

[alocky (Andrew lockwood)]

I have a patent for such a device to generate sound waves in water down below the 5Hz mark- although I've also tested it up past 440Hz, and getting systems capable of measuring it is no easy trick either.
On to the original claim that there is any kind of resonance around 20 Hz related to natural seismicity - not at all true. Earthquakes do produce 20hz, along with every other frequency imaginable. There's nothing special about it geophysically speaking!
Cheers,
Andrew.

[LewisM]

Ray,

I don't know the specs, but it is an Altec-Lansing system with large subwoofer and 4 surround speakers - system is around 10 years old.

I think you feel it more than hear it, but there is a dull throb in there - I think maybe the 285Hz "carrier" Astral Traveller mentions.

There are several others on the Tube, so try others. I do notice the cat gets particularly sketchy when I play the one I linked.

[Camelopardalis (Dunk)]

Originally Posted by LewisM

I note the pain/pressure in the frontal area above the eyes seems to last considerably longer than the other effects.

Frontal area above the eyes is the frontal sinus. Some are especially sensitive to pressure in that region. I can sense the weather changing

[RB (Andrew)]

Originally Posted by LewisM

Maybe I have alien probe implants in my brain and it vibrates them....

They didn't probe your brain.....
(Or maybe they thought it was your brain. )

[CJ (Chris)]

Originally Posted by Pinwheel

Isn't this also known as the Brown note, it causes some people to soil themselves. Mythbusters did a show about it.

So did the South Park team!